Cook makes special appearance after cancer surgery

Published: Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 01:04 AM.

Photo Galleries

ALTAMAHAW — In what became a season-opening fight for Dustin Rumley, a faulty transmission made shifting gears an impossible proposition and a damaged race car made his cockpit fill with exhaust fumes.

But the McLeansville driver overcame those deteriorating and debilitating factors to tough out a 60-lap victory in the Late Models debut feature Friday night at Ace Speedway.

“It was rough,” Rumley said. “I had to do what I had to do. It was a battle, really.”

So much so that the defending champion in Ace’s premier classification climbed out in Victory Lane with his eyes burning and his head woozy.

Rumley wrestled throughout with the defective shifter in his No. 88 Chevrolet — he finally settled on keeping it in fourth gear, rather than dropping down to third gear for restarts — and increasingly dealt with the exhaust vapors that poured in during the final 50 laps.

“I just left it in high gear and put my nose down and dug,” he said. “You don’t never give up, no matter what. So I just drove and dug. And I still had a pretty decent car, even though it got beat up a little bit.”

With 19 laps remaining, Rumley’s decision to take the restart cone and move to the outside lane opened the door for winning maneuvers. He gained momentum on the high line, rocketing past Dean Fogleman into second position.

ALTAMAHAW — In what became a season-opening fight for Dustin Rumley, a faulty transmission made shifting gears an impossible proposition and a damaged race car made his cockpit fill with exhaust fumes.

But the McLeansville driver overcame those deteriorating and debilitating factors to tough out a 60-lap victory in the Late Models debut feature Friday night at Ace Speedway.

“It was rough,” Rumley said. “I had to do what I had to do. It was a battle, really.”

So much so that the defending champion in Ace’s premier classification climbed out in Victory Lane with his eyes burning and his head woozy.

Rumley wrestled throughout with the defective shifter in his No. 88 Chevrolet — he finally settled on keeping it in fourth gear, rather than dropping down to third gear for restarts — and increasingly dealt with the exhaust vapors that poured in during the final 50 laps.

“I just left it in high gear and put my nose down and dug,” he said. “You don’t never give up, no matter what. So I just drove and dug. And I still had a pretty decent car, even though it got beat up a little bit.”

With 19 laps remaining, Rumley’s decision to take the restart cone and move to the outside lane opened the door for winning maneuvers. He gained momentum on the high line, rocketing past Dean Fogleman into second position.

Soon thereafter, Rumley overtook John Moore, who led the first 46 laps and seemed poised to perhaps deliver what would have been the first Late Models victory of his career at Ace.

“I didn’t think I was going to end up here,” Rumley said, standing in Victory Lane, soaked with sweat and his eyes bloodshot.

Rumley supplied the top qualifying effort with a lap of 15.732 seconds. The fastest four qualifiers were inverted. And before the green flag dropped, Rodney Cook made a special appearance on the asphalt track.

Cook, the former Late Models champion, a week removed from cancer surgery, with his right arm in a sling, gave the command for drivers to start their engines.

Moore said later, while assessing his third-place run, that had he secured a long-sought victory, it would have been dedicated to Cook, his second cousin.

“This means the world to me right here,” Cook said, thanking the tight-knit Ace community for its support. “It’s just a matter of time that I’m going to get myself back here to racing.”

Restarts plagued Rumley early on in the season opener, with the gear problems proving troublesome when it was time to take off and surge ahead with the rest of the 10-car field.

Then, on the second of three restarts to the 10th lap, Rumley again was struggling with the gear issue when contact with Brad Kurth, attempting to zoom past on the outside, left Kurth’s No. 9 car wrecked and shredded in the concrete wall above turns one and two.

Rumley’s car came out of that scrape battered on the passenger’s side, a situation that sent the exhaust fumes blowing into his cockpit.

“It was shooting into the car,” he said. “My eyes were burning and I was getting real weak.”

-- In the 40-lap Limited Late Models race, Liberty teenager Boo Boo Dalton, the division’s defending champion, rode a slingshot move to the front and ultimately pulled away to a season-opening victory.

Dalton’s No. 50 Chevrolet led the final 34 laps, after taking the restart cone in third position and winding it up on the outside to bolt past the cars of Todd Gray and Jason Payne.

“I couldn’t ask for a better way to open up the season,” Dalton said. “It feels good. I’m home, y’all. I love every single one of these fans. Even the ones that flip me off, I love y’all, too.”

Dalton said he was mad at himself in qualifying, when his lap of 16.001 seconds checked in slower than Steve Hatley’s lap of 15.961 seconds. Once he calmed down, he went on to navigate four double-file restarts in the race that contained 10 cars.

One caution was caused by a dustup on the frontstretch in which Gray and Randy Sampson were racing hard for second position. The last caution came with five laps remaining, when Calvin Meadows spun.

Chapel Hill’s Hatley crossed the finish line in second, but later his No. 41 car was disqualified during a post-race inspection protest. That elevated Burlington’s Ziggy Zimmerman to the runner-up spot and Haw River’s Payne to a third-place finish.

-- In the 20-lap X-treme Cars race, Stokesdale’s Barry Wilson extended his early hot streak and picked up his first points victory of the season.

Wilson’s No. 7 Acura led the final 14 laps after bypassing Robbie Church on the backstretch.

Wilson swept a pair of victories here two weeks ago. Those were of the non-points variety.

On Friday night, anxious moments arose on a restart during the middle portion of the race. Wilson was leading, but missed a shift and subsequently had to fend off contact and challenges from the cars of Wayne Harrington and Brian Obiedzenski.

“I said, ‘Oh boy, I think I blowed this one,’ ” Wilson said. “But we managed to keep the lead.”